‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

^But Zod is not a member of the audience any more than Jenny is. A character's actions need to be motivated by things that make sense if the character is a real person making their own choices, rather than simply a puppet being pushed around by a screenwriter. There was no evident reason in the film why Zod chose Metropolis as the site where he landed the ship. There was no depiction of him making a decision to that effect, and no convincing reason why he would. It was unjustified by anything internal to the story. It was just tacked on because it was expected, and that's crappy writing.

 

I'll be interested to see if the blueray has any additional scenes in regards to some of the storyline holes.

 

Could it be that Metropolis was attacked because it was where Lois Lane lived? Zod captured both of them and read their minds (off screen mind you, which I thought was bad writing). He could have gleamed from the mind reading that Supes had a thing for Lois Lane, so how does he use that to his advantage? By attacking the very city she lives and works in.

 

Perhaps, but it still feels to me like a fairly nitpicky complaint to make. Especially when it's a given in any alien invasion movie (which this for all intents and purposes was) that NY will be the main target and focus of an attack.

Besides, it's not hard to imagine that Zod's advisors recognized Metropolis as being (like NY) the most iconic city in the richest nation on Earth, and that attacking it would probably make the biggest impact. They were up there in orbit for a while before sending down the World Engines, after all, so I'm sure they had time to survey the planet.

 

That's a reach. Zod had no reason to care that much about Lois. And any "thing" that Superman had for Lois was far too tenuous at that point to be a significant motivating factor for Zod. I mean, yeah, technically her newspaper was based in Metropolis, but she spent very little of the movie there, and all of her interactions with Clark took place elsewhere.

Besides, Zod may have been villainous, but I can't believe he'd be that childishly spiteful as to pick the location for the destruction of the world to begin simply because it had a tenuous connection to a woman his nemesis kinda liked a little.

Bottom line, it just feels like a decision imposed on the characters by the screenwriter, rather than one they made organically for reasons of their own. Even aside from the motivation behind Zod's decision, it's bad story structure, because the movie failed to establish Metropolis as part of Superman's life before putting it in danger. Any audience perception of a link between Superman and Metropolis came from outside the film itself, from our expectations and assumptions shaped by earlier works. The film was structuraly flawed because it lazily depended on our prior acceptance of these tropes rather than selling them within itself. Just as it had Jenny declare Superman a savior when the character had no plausible reason to do so, simply because our prior knowledge of Superman made us assume he would fill that role.

You've said that about two of my complaints now, and your mistake is in assuming I'm treating them in isolation. What I'm saying -- and what numerous other critics of the film have said as well -- is that they're symptoms of a systemic problem with the way the story was structured.

 

I don't dispute that the movie has a few pacing and structure problems, or that it was a little too focused on action over character (although for me the movie's strengths more than made up for those things), but a lot of this other stuff just sounds like nitpicks you could find in pretty much any superhero movie.

Saying that one line from Jenny or the location of Zod's attack is a "symptom" of a larger problem is a bit of a stretch, I think.

 

Hmm, I like the idea of a Batman who's "tired and weary" and been around for awhile, but the fact Affleck barely looks much older than Cavill might make that a bit of a tough sell, I think...

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=108868

 

Well, Affleck is 11 years older than Cavill.

 

Hmm, so this will be a Batman that is fully formed and has already met most of his rogues gallery by the time we meet him? I wonder how much of Batman's world will be glimpsed in this movie? I'm expecting at least Alfred to show up. I would expect that this Batman would have taken at least one Robin under his wing, which makes me think they might be going the Dark Knight Returns route of having Batman quit by the time Supes first appears, and only decides to take the cowl again to combat the threat which he perceives Superman to be. However, the idea of Batman coming out of retirement to fight Superman is kinda preposterous to me so I hope it's not the route the filmmakers are going. I prefer Batman just to be in the game for a while and he happens to encounter Superman.

 

I don't think so, because it removes any options they have for telling stories in solo films, and because it doesn't fit in with what MoS established. Batman being tired, weary, and seasoned doesn't contradict MoS in and of itself, but he has to have gained whatever experience he has without word of his existence leaking, and if he's already fought most of his rogues gallery - especially the high-profile criminals like Joker, Riddler, etc - the more the likelihood of knowledge or rumors of his existence leaking increases.

 

If memory serves, the basic plot of the aborted Wolfgang Peterson Superman vs Batman film involved an older Batman who was engaged or married and ready to retire. His love interest is killed by the villain, and his conflict with Superman is caused by his desire for vengeance versus Superman's desire for justice tempered with mercy. I wonder if the upcoming film will draw on any of this?

 

I think it would have to be the case since they're going with a older, veteran Batman who's already been long established before Superman even appeared. Besides it doesn't really contradict Steel anyway seeing as they're was hints of Batman's existence in Steel. Furthermore, I'm not sure they will use this Batman for solo films of his own. This version only seems to be regulated to this film and feasibly other team-up films to follow. Even if they do spin him off into his own films(which I don't think will the case) it won't really tarnish the storytelling in those. In anything, this version of Batman that will be debuting in this film seems to be linked to that Batman Beyond film that Warner Bros have been yearning to do.
On a another note, I would really love it if they go with Batman as this mysterious urban legend that comics did for a while prior to No Man's Land(though the '89 film did that a little bit) . I think that would be pretty interesting to explore a little more on film.

 

Well even if Batman's existence HAS leaked, we're still just talking about a regular human running around in a bat costume, and fighting a bunch of crazy wackos from the insane asylum. That's far different from the discovery of an indestructible, superpowered alien who can fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes.

So I don't really see any contradiction there, with Superman still being the first "true" superhero on Earth.

 

Works for me. Batman is a shadowy urban vigilante (or "mystery man," as they used to be called) who is rumored to have taken down various high-profile gangsters, maniacs, and terrorists, and who may or may not have an "unofficial" connection to a certain Commissioner Gordon, but his activities in Gotham would certainly not "change everything" the way the sudden appearance of a god-like extraterrestrial would . . . .

 

The more I hear about this the more I think Josh Brolin or Jon Hamm or someone along those lines might have been more appropriate, but alas.

 

Would Ryan Gosling make a good Aquaman?

 

^In point of fact, Batman's existence is actually implied by the Wayne Enterprise satellite.

 

Exactly. When Jonathan Kent is talking about how Clark's very existence will change the way humanity sees the universe, I doubt he was talking about the possibility of caped crime-fighters!

MAN OF STEEL was basically a sci-fi movie about First Contact and an alien invasion. Not sure why anyone would bring up a notorious masked vigilante when dealing with buried spaceships and superhuman invaders. That would be like mentioning the Green Hornet during the War of the Worlds!

 

Okay, now you have to write that crossover.